Problem: The arithmetic sequence $(a_i)$ is defined by the formula: $a_1 = -8$ $a_i = a_{i-1} - 4$ What is $a_{5}$, the fifth term in the sequence?
From the given formula, we can see that the first term of the sequence is $-8$ and the common difference is $-4$ To find the fifth term, we can rewrite the given recurrence as an explicit formula. The general form for an arithmetic sequence is $a_i = a_1 + d(i - 1)$ . In this case, we have $a_i = -8 - 4(i - 1)$ To find $a_{5}$ , we can simply substitute $i = 5$ into the our formula. Therefore, the fifth term is equal to $a_{5} = -8 - 4 (5 - 1) = -24$.